I, personally, prefer the task bar with the icons to be at the top of the screen (I just like all my menus to drop DOWN, I guess)....but, as mentioned, you can drag it anywhere you want. You can also drag the edge to give you double or triple width, you can set it to hide itself until you 'mouse over' it. (start->settings->task bar & start menu).

In truth, you can control 'almost' everything about the color, display, positioning, font, etc...etc... You just need to like to mess with it..*grin*

and yes, there are registry editors/clean-up programs which will find 'orphaned' settings and ask you what to delete.